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Antipsychotic drugs are schizophrenia’s hidden gulag

UNTIL shockingly recently, the mentally ill were routinely locked away and given a “chemical cosh” to keep them quiet. We no longer leave people to rot in asylums, but many are still drugged up to the eyeballs.

To be discharged from hospital, people with schizophrenia often have to agree to take antipsychotic drugs for the rest of their lives. We now know these may do little to aid recovery while trapping people in a mental miasma that ruins their chances of living a normal life (see “Rethinking schizophrenia&colon; Taming demons without drugs“). The drugs can also lead to diabetes and heart disease.

Adding to the cruelty, people with serious mental health problems are often denied adequate healthcare for physical illnesses because their symptoms are assumed to be delusional. Such injustices have led the World Health Organization to declare the treatment of such people a “hidden human rights emergency“.

Recent research suggests that people weaned off antipsychotics are much more likely to live productive lives. The asylum may be history, but as long as enforced drugging continues, many people with schizophrenia are still imprisoned.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Schizophrenia’s gulag”